By Bee Staff
A U.S. District judge in Sacramento has sentenced a pot grower/processer to three years and five months in prison, the U.S. Attorney said.
David Dean Davidson, 59, also was sentenced by Judge Morrison C. England Jr. to three years of supervised release, U.S. Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner said.
Davidson pleaded guilty on Dec. 10 to growing more than 100 marijuana plants. He was arrested by U.S. marshals in June 2007.
He had been a fugitive since he failed to appear in court in September 2005, Wagner said.
The case was the product of an investigation by the Tehama County District Attorney's Bureau of Investigations, the Tehama County Sheriff's Department, the Alameda County Narcotics Task Force, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office Investigative Division, and the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, Wagner said.
According to Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Stegman, who prosecuted the case, in July 2003 Tehama County law enforcement officers obtained a search warrant for Davidson's residence in Red Bluff, where he was living with girlfriend and co-defendant Cynthia Barcelo Blake.
Officers found marijuana plants in three greenhouses in the backyard, as well as an indoor grow in the attached garage, Stegman said. There were 34 mature marijuana plants growing in the greenhouses and 1,100 cuttings in the garage, which had florescent lighting and an air purifier.
The discovery of the drug led officers to obtain another search warrant for a house owned by Davidson in Oakland.
There, officers found 35 mature marijuana plants growing in the backyard, and 634 cuttings planted in the basement with grow lights, carbon dioxide tanks, oscillating fans, air vents and a hood that vented to the outside, Stegman said.
Officers also found 54 packages of processed marijuana totaling six kilograms, Stegman said.
Blake pleaded guilty in January 2006 to maintaining drug involved premises and was sentenced to a year in prison and six months of home detention, Wagner said.
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